Trafficking of children is a form of trafficking in human beings and is one of the practices associated with the worst forms of child labour by the International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC). Child trafficking is a crime under international law and under the national legislation of many countries. It typically involves:

the separation of children from their family - "by force, coercion, trickery – including the administration of drugs – family and other complicity, or by much gentler persuasion, misinformation, or through ignorance about what really awaits them at their destination"[1] - and

their relocation within the same country or across borders for purposes such as forced labour, prostitution, pornography, organ removal or use as child soldiers.

United States Federal law criminalizes sex trafficking of children under Title 18 U.S.C. 1591 and Title 18 U.S.C. 2421-2423. Section 1591, a civil rights statute, makes it illegal to "recruit, entice, harbor, transport, provide or obtain by any means a person" knowing that either the person will be compelled through "force, fraud or coercion" to submit to a sex act, or that the person is under 18 years of age and will likewise be forced to commit a sex act. Sections 2421-2423, part of the 2003 PROTECT Act, criminalizes transport of minors for sex acts. It also criminalizes travelling to engage in illicit sex in another country. This provision of the law empowered federal prosecutors to address American's exploitation of minors in foreign countries.